#warpweaver

20: Talk about something that happened in high school.

It was the last hour of the last day of band camp in the summer of 2016. Up until then, I’d spent an entire summer working under the hot sun-- actually, in particular, the hottest summer in South Florida on record-- on finishing our first song in the show and getting all the music and marching basics down. I have a horrible tan to prove it. Anyway, that day, we were learning the first few pages of drill for the second song. We were doing this weird body movement and running it, when suddenly, I felt the weirdest twisting feeling in my right knee and fell down. The shock set in and all I could concentrate on was the pain suddenly bursting both from the brand-new scrapes on my knee (we practice on concrete) and something more internal. I also realized that I was screaming, and had the forethought to cover my mouth with my gloved hand. 

The next few minutes felt like hours. I remember it in flashes. One of the other trumpets yelling for someone to get help and keeping people from crowding me. Other band and guard people looking at me in shock. One of my instructors-- the best instructor I’ve ever had in anything-- walking up to me and then turning around and walking away (only later would I found out that he went to get the band director). Another instructor standing by me (a drumline instructor that I had never spoken to before then). And then, hearing someone say my band director’s name. I remember thinking then and there that I had to scrape what little dignity I had left together and slowly removing my hand from my mouth. My brother practically jumped off of his drum major podium and ran over to me, grabbing my hand. That was when I decided to finally take a look at what had happened. 

Where my knee used to be there was only flat skin. To the right of that place, there was suddenly a kneecap. Needless to say, my stomach felt like it was turning itself inside-out. 

And then the band director showed up.

I told him what happened, feeling ashamed and embarrassed of both my injury and my shaking voice. He was calm the entire time, but when he tried to move me, I started yelling in pain, and then there was a little bit of panic in his eyes. He gave me an ultimatum: either I wait for an ambulance and an EMT could slot my knee back in place, or he could try to do it. 

Let me explain to you why I chose the latter. 

I knew that he had experience with this kind of thing before. The exact same thing happened to him multiple times, and he’d had a ton of surgery on his knees. He knew how it worked. Also, in my pain-addled state, I was sure that as soon as it went back in, I could get up and go on marching right after. And I wanted to finish the camp. Plus there was the fact that I was all kinds of embarrassed by then. I didn’t want more fanfare by bringing in an ambulance of all things. My brother, right beside me, was panicking, but he respected my decision (after asking me if I was sure about five times). He handed me the hat right off his head and I bit down. 

I don’t know if I’ve ever screamed like I did in that moment. I don’t think I’ve ever felt pain like I did in that moment. But before I knew it, the knee was in and I was being lifted onto one of the equipment carts. Long story short, I didn’t tear anything important, so I didn’t need surgery. But I spent the first two weeks of school on crutches and couldn’t march for the rest of the season. I got moved to a spot in the mostly static front percussion ensemble (otherwise known as the Pit) and I’ve been playing the glockenspiel for the rest of marching season. 

21: Talk about a time you had to turn someone down. 

I was a sophomore and it was the very beginnings of concert season, during the winter concert. I had been talking a lot with a freshman in the trumpet section (who played a woodwind instrument for concert season). We hung out throughout the night of the concert, and when I went home that evening, I found a bunch of texts from her. Essentially she told me that she had a crush on me. At the time, I wasn’t really ready for any sort of relationship. I also wasn’t really sure how I felt about anyone at that moment. I let her down as gently as possible and we continued being friends afterward, but I can’t help but feel that I might have hurt her and that pains me. 

22: Talk about your worst fear.

Since I was a little kid, I’d been raised not to fail. To refuse to fail at anything. Or perhaps, now that I look back on it, that was just my obsessive mentality taking my parents’ lessons and twisting them to a dogma of never being bad at anything, ever. Either way, as I grew up, that fostered in me an abject fear of failure at anything. If I was bad at something, I either worked to be great or avoided it entirely. I started to be afraid of doing anything I could possibly fail at. I took everything too seriously, I practiced everything too seriously, so I didn’t fail in front of anyone. And I told myself that I was doing it for my parents, but really, I was just doing it to feed that fear. As I got older and started to understand ideas of legacy and of the sacrifices my parents made to come to this country, that only added to my fear. Now it meant that I couldn’t fail because I had to show that that investment hadn’t been made in vain, that I was worthy of the life I had been born into. 

Today, that fear of failure still drives me to be the best I can be, especially academically. I can’t stand to give up on anything, to cruise through anything. But it also gives way to a low self-esteem. 

23: Talk about a time someone turned you down.

I honestly can barely remember the last time I admitted my feelings to anyone so they could properly turn me down. I usually just keep it to myself until it fades on its own. I never really do a proper confession. 

24: Talk about something someone told you that meant a lot.

In the band program I’m in, becoming an officer requires an application process that includes going to these officer training sessions, where they teach you about leadership and teamwork and that kind of thing. In the first of these sessions, I talked quite a lot about my own views on leadership and the program itself. After the meeting, two of my instructors-- one of whom is the guy that is, like, my actual hero-- commented on the fact that they’d never really heard me speak that much at once (in band I’m not very vocal. For the most part, there’s not too much room to be and I’m very much an introvert). They said that they thought my comments were awesome, and one of them even said “still water runs deep.” It’s a small thing, but it meant a lot to me that they listened to me and thought that what I said had meaning. 

38: Talk about songs that remind you of certain people.

Everybody Talks by Neon Trees always reminds me of @radmero. It’s bright and laid-back and had this undercurrent of sarcasm that always reminds me of her. Most songs by Neon Trees, actually, remind me of her. 

i hate u, i love u by gnash always makes me think of this one friend that I lost recently. The song is in the romantic sense but I think of it in a more platonic sense with the two of us. It’s good at articulating the indignation and hurt. Bohemian Rhapsody also always makes me think of the same person. 

Someone New by Hozier makes me think of myself and my own approach to romantic feelings. How confusing it all is. It also makes me think of my brother and his approach to the same. We can both relate.

Treat You Better by Shawn Mendes makes me think of this one friend of mine that I used to have a pretty big crush on. Kind of still do. Who doesn’t think of a crush that’s already taken when they hear this song? 

Hear Me by Imagine Dragons always makes me think of you. I feel like you have so much so say but you don’t really say it very often. 

I Lived by OneRepublic makes me think of @harakanvarvas. I think it’s just the style of music and the album cover, not so much the lyrics. 

39: Talk about things you wish you'd known earlier.